MARC CHAGALL

(1887-1985)

La visite de l'ange à la campagne

Footnotes

The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by the Comité Marc Chagall.

Provenance
Salzman Collection; their sale, Rossini, Paris, June 15, 2004, lot 71.
(possibly) Galerie Boulakia, Paris.
Possibly acquired from the above by the late owner.


The artist Marc Chagall is considered to be, in the eyes of many art historians, the great one-off of his time. His extensive oeuvre, largely imbued with a sense of fantastical mysticism, defies any attempt at classification or stylistic attribution. The artist himself notably disliked having to comment on his own work, believing that his paintings alone contained his soul. The veracity of this sentiment is fully realized upon gazing into the colorful, dreamlike state of Chagall's pictorial world, as exhibited in La visite de l'ange à la campagne, and encountering the essence of Chagall's spirit radiating from every swath of color. In addition to the enchanting atmospheres Chagall created through color and form, the artist's fantastical motifs, objects, and figures have a highly symbolic nature. The imagery of Chagall's work is so distinctive to the artist that, as Franz Meyer puts it: "the imagery is not the subject, but constitutes, no less than the color and the form, a structural element of the picture" (F. Meyer, Marc Chagall: Life and Work, New York, 1964, p. 12). Through rich color and lyrical imagery, Chagall creates the visage of a gentle, joyful world that transcends daily life.

La visite de l'ange à la campagne, painted circa 1935, was produced during a pivotal time in the artist's life. After residing in Russia for the better part of a decade, Chagall left his mother country for Paris in September of 1923. Immediately following the artist's arrival in Paris, he felt a renewed sense of spiritual freedom. This newfound freedom had a direct influence on the artist's creative impulses and artistic imagination. It was in Paris that Chagall was also introduced to various prominent figures within the European art world. Many of these introductions grew into friendships, and Chagall frequently found himself within the company of artists, writers, and critics such as Robert Delaunay, Guillaume Apollinaire, Gustave Coquiot, and André Levinson. Arguably the most influential relationship from this time, however, was Chagall's introduction to Ambrose Vollard, the famous art dealer and book publisher. Beginning with his first commission of Chagall's Dead Souls in 1923, Vollard continued to support and promote the work of Chagall with large commissions up until the esteemed publisher's death in 1939. Perhaps the most pivotal of these commissions was the illustrated Bible in 1930. Chagall, attracted by the spirit and poetry of the Bible in equal measure to its religious content, readily welcomed this ambitious project. Chagall worked on these illustrations of the Old Testament for decades; having only finished sixty-six plates upon Vollard's death in 1939, the complete set, comprised of 105 etchings, was not fully finished until 1956.

The present work, executed from gouache, pastel, and pencil on paper, was not one of the many Old Testament illustrations Chagall etched during this time, yet the influence of that project on La visite de l'ange à la campagne is palpable. Angels, the messengers of God's word, frequently appear within the Bible, bringing news from the heavens to the mortal world. Chagall notably used colorful gouaches as a starting point for his Bible images so, aside from a testament to the artist's general preoccupation with religion from the time, it is also likely that the present work served as a study for one of his Bible illustrations. Indeed, the rolling hills of the countryside visible in La visite de l'ange à la campagne are used as the backdrop for many of the illustrations in Chagall's Bible, such as 19, Joseph Attacked by his Brothers and 88, Elijah's Vision. Continuity throughout his Biblical settings is not surprising for Chagall, who found the experience of light and landscape to be the primary inspiration for his illustrated Bible, leaving no doubt that the actions depicted did take place in the "land of the Bible."

Chagall, whose imagery often drew directly from the personal experiences of his life, was likely influenced by his time spent in the hilly countryside of Nesles-la-Vallée in 1930 when constructing the landscape in the present work. Livestock was a frequent sight in the artist's hometown of Vitebsk, Russia, and as a result, these animals also came to populate his paintings with increasing frequency. Animals such as the green goat seen in the present work came to acquire symbolic, mystical meaning and often represented a source of inspiration or creativity for the artist. It is through this manner of "Biblical realism", a unique blend of symbolism, dreamlike imagery, and a personal, often mystical, perspective, that establishes Chagall's Biblical, and all other imagery, as entirely independent from that of his contemporaries. Chagall was uninterested in representing the literal word of God, once commenting: "I did not see the Bible, I dreamed it.... It has always seemed to me and still seems today the greatest source of poetry of all time." (quoted in F. Meyer, Marc Chagall: Life and Work, New York, 1964, p. 384). Rather, Chagall transposed his interpretation of God's word with figures and setting to form the representation of a spiritual meaning that lends as much religious force as the Bible itself. The present work, rich in symbolism and color, is a perfect illustration of Chagall's unique ability to transpose intimate emotions and personal themes into universally accessible images.